Winston Churchill's said, "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." This encourages me to fight, especially for kids in classrooms. They deserve better.

Friday, December 30, 2011

When I was in the classroom, the break around Christmas was always a time when I retooled what was going on in my classroom. It was my half-time for the year, a time to step back and make important changes so that my students would learn better. Half of my time with them was gone, and I wanted the rest of the time with them to be as good as it could be.

If you're new to teaching science by inquiry, you've got a chance to make some key tweaks to teaching and learning in your classroom now. You probably don't need to make huge changes, even if you're frustrated with inquiry. Inquiry is a great approach for teaching! Don't doubt that. Instead, step back and think about small changes that you can make that can give big benefits.

How do your students give a priority to evidence when they are learning science?

How adept are your students at developing explanations based on the evidence they're seeing?

How adept are you at guiding your students to consider alternative explanations for the evidence they're seeing?

How are your students constantly communicating and justifying their explanations?

I've found that if I think through the five essential features, I can usually figure out what's not working well in the inquiries I'm leading and how I can improve my students learning.

I'll be tweeting out tips based on each of these questions in the next few days. I hope these help you as you teach with inquiry. Please let me know with a comment here or a reply on twitter if you have any questions. I'm happy to help.